Chương 12
“He knows Caroline values it.”
“He assumes she gave Sophie access to whatever he wants.”
Martin said, “Which means giving it to him would answer a question he currently cannot answer.”
Daniel nodded.
“Then don’t.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“An hour ago you were willing to drag Sophie out of my house with forged paperwork.”
His mouth tightened.
“I know.”
“That is not absolution.”
“I didn’t ask for absolution.”
“Good.”
“I thought if I got Sophie away, Michael would leave Caroline alone.”
“You believed a man threatening Caroline would become less dangerous after you delivered her child into your custody using his forged document?”
Daniel looked down.
“Floor,” Sophie said.
He looked up again.
“I was scared.”
Sophie’s voice was quiet.
“So was Mom.”
Daniel had no answer.
Ortiz’s phone rang.
She moved to the far side of the room and answered.
Evelyn sat beside Sophie again.
The child had stopped crying, which Evelyn found more alarming.
“Your mother used to do that.”
Sophie looked at her.
“Do what?”
“Become very quiet when she was furious.”
“I’m not furious.”
“You are.”
“I’m scared.”
“You can be both.”
Sophie picked at the seam of the oversized coat.
“Why didn’t you talk to her?”
There it was.
No mystery, no dangerous man, no hidden evidence.
Just the question Evelyn had successfully avoided for four years.
“Because I was angry.”
“For four years?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
Evelyn looked at the coffee machine.
A green light blinked beside a button labeled BREW.
“And then it became embarrassing.”
Sophie frowned.
“What did?”
“Calling.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
Sophie seemed surprised by the agreement.
Evelyn continued.
“After enough time passes, you begin thinking you need the perfect sentence to explain why you waited.”
“What was the sentence?”
“I never found one.”
“You could’ve said hi.”
“Yes.”
“Mom could’ve too.”
“Yes.”
Sophie leaned against her.
Evelyn did not deserve the gesture.
She accepted it anyway.
Ortiz returned.
“The building has power.”
Daniel frowned.
“It shouldn’t.”
“Electric service is active under Vale Research Holdings.”
“Can they see inside?”
“Not yet.”
“What about thermal?”
Bell asked.
Ortiz shook her head.
“Walls are heavily insulated.”
Martin looked toward the door.
“Old testing lab.”
Daniel nodded.
“Environmental chambers.”
“That complicates entry.”
“It also complicates hearing anything from outside.”
Ortiz looked at Daniel.
“I need a floor plan.”
“I can get one.”
“How?”
“Company archive.”
“On your phone?”
“No.”
Daniel hesitated.
“My office laptop.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“Too far.”
“I might have a copy in email.”
Ortiz handed him his phone under Bell’s supervision.
“Search only.”
Daniel unlocked it.
Sophie watched his thumb move.
Then she said, “Why did Michael have your phone?”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
“Yesterday.”
Sophie sat upright.
“You left it on our kitchen counter.”
Daniel’s face emptied.
“He picked it up when you went outside.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he do?”
“He held it near your face when you came back.”
Martin stopped wiping the table.
Daniel stared at Sophie.
“He unlocked it.”
She nodded.
“Then he gave it back.”
Daniel opened his account settings.
His breathing changed.
“There’s another device signed in.”
Ortiz stepped behind him.
“Do not remove it.”
“He can see my email.”
“Probably.”
“My messages.”
“Possibly.”
Daniel looked toward the station door.
“And anything I search.”
Ortiz took the phone from him.
“Then we assume Michael knows we found the lab.”
The prepaid phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared.
Caroline sat on a concrete floor beneath a fluorescent light.
Her left wrist was swollen and bent against her chest.
Blood stained the front of her blouse.
Beside her head, someone had placed a digital clock.
10:17.
Under the photograph was one sentence.
YOU HAVE FORTY-THREE MINUTES.
Sophie made a strangled sound.
Evelyn enlarged the image.
Caroline’s eyes were open.
They were not looking at the camera.
They were looking down and to her right.
Evelyn followed the angle.
At the bottom edge of the photograph, almost cut off, was a familiar strip of blue fabric.
Sophie saw it too.
“The chair.”
Daniel leaned over the table.
“That’s Storage Forty-Two.”
Ortiz grabbed her radio.
Martin shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone turned toward him.
He pointed at the photograph.
“If Michael wants us to believe Caroline is at the lab, why send a picture with the chair from the storage unit?”
Evelyn looked again.
The concrete floor.
The fluorescent light.
The blue upholstery.
The digital clock.
Caroline’s gaze.
Not at the camera.
At the chair.
Evelyn suddenly saw what her daughter was doing.
“She’s telling us where to look.”
Ortiz’s eyes narrowed.
“For the drive?”
“No.”
Evelyn picked up the brass key.
“For the thing Michael still doesn’t know she hid.”
Ortiz looked at the key, then at the photograph.
“Storage Forty-Two is still being watched.”
“By your people?”
“From outside.”
“Then we go back.”
“No.”
Evelyn stood.
Ortiz blocked the door before she reached it.
“That photograph may be bait.”
“It is bait.”
“Then you understand why you’re staying here.”
“I understand why Michael expects us to stay here.”
Sophie slipped out of the wool coat.
“I know where Mom cut the chair.”
Everyone turned toward her.
She looked annoyed rather than frightened now, which was so precisely Caroline that Evelyn almost smiled.
“It wasn’t underneath the middle.”
Sophie pointed toward the lower corner of the photograph.
“It was near one of the back legs.”
Martin picked up the brass key.
Ortiz gave him a look.
He set it down again.
“Sorry.”
Daniel was staring at the digital clock in the photograph.
“Ten seventeen.”
“It’s ten twenty-one now,” Bell said.
“No, look.”
Daniel enlarged the display.
“There’s no colon blinking.”
Evelyn saw it.
The clock was not running.
Ortiz took the phone.
“Could be the photograph.”
“Could be,” Daniel said.
“But Michael gave us forty-three minutes at ten seventeen.”
Martin understood first.
“He wanted the display to match the message.”
Daniel nodded.
“He staged it.”
“So the photograph may not have been taken today,” Ortiz said.
Sophie shook her head.
May you like
“It was.”
“How can you tell?”
